We all know that cloud computing is elastic. If you need more resources, it’s easy to add capacity. It’s not infinite capacity, but it is easy to add capacity on demand compared to the traditional way of procuring, racking, and stacking servers, storage, and networking equipment.

However, computer hardware alone does not a solution make. There is a need for operating system software, application software, and most importantly, some people who get actually do the hard work to make this work.

Some parts may be automated, such as operating system installation and provisioning software, but there are tasks that simply cannot be automated. This actually puts one in a quandary – if you need to scale capacity elastically during times of heavy demand, how do you scale the people? It’s not like surge pricing in Uber where people will magically come out of the woodwork due to increased demand. Even if there are extra staff available in the IT department, they may not have relevant skills or certifications.